Dunham Farm proposal
clears Zoning Commission

News-Times, The (Danbury, CT)

Published 7:00 pm, Thursday, February 3, 2005

At a special meeting last week, the
Zoning Commission
unanimously approved an amendment to its regulations to allow a major planned residential district, a zone change, and a general development plan specific to a 164-acre site on Candlewood Mountain owned by
Carl Dunham
.

The general development plan is for town houses, apartment flats and single-family homes for those 55 and older concentrated on 55 to 60 of the 164 acres.

It also permits a few specific accessory and recreational uses including a general store, non-denominational chapel, coffee shop, clubhouse, pool, tennis courts and hair salon

The zoning approvals are effective March 1.

An elated
Karl Frey
, a principal in Vespera Investments, the project developer, said after last week's vote it's been a collaborative effort and that zoners "have worked with extraordinary diligence" during the past few months.

"It's been an amazing process," Mr. Frey said. "[Zoning] worked hard, and they've locked us into building what we promised.

"We're going to deliver the project we promised," he pledged.

Mr. Frey said there is high interest in the project, as evidenced by the calls he's getting from people asking to be placed on a waiting list for the units, which will have an average selling price of $450,000.

"Now the hard work starts," said Mr. Frey, adding that it would be difficult to imagine a ground-breaking before the spring of 2006.

With a zone change and an approved general development plan in hand, the next step is to engineer all the detailed plans for the $250 million development, which will need more land use approvals.

Mr. Frey also plans to start work on forming a tax district for the proposed tax increment financing, and continue the process of explaining the plans to build and finance the project which could take five to six years to build out.

He said he would also be moving forward with plans to hook into town sewers.

But there is the possibility of an additional hurdle.

Resident
Bob Kostes
, who stood observing the Zoning Commission discussion for most of the Jan. 27 special meeting, asked after the vote about deadlines for an appeal.

Zoning Enforcement Officer
Kathy Castagnetta
said once the notice of the approval is published, residents would have 15 days to file an appeal.

When asked about an appeal, Mr. Kostes said Tuesday in an e-mail response that he is "looking into the possibility. I don't know at this point if there is anything to appeal."

After the vote, a happy Mr. Dunham, who owns the property that will be developed, said, "I'm very pleased with the process. It's been handled in such an efficient and thorough way."

"It's very helpful to have the independent consultant confirm the quality and thoroughness," Mr. Dunham said.

"I know this is going to be a terrific project," said Mayor
Pat Murphy
, who has been a staunch supporter of the proposal.

Zoners have spent hours at hearings and meetings over the past five months on the proposal and worked with their consultant
Vince McDermott
, senior vice president of Milone and MacBroom of Cheshire, reviewing the proposal.

"It's been a long convoluted process," said Mr. McDermott.

Zoning Commission Chairman
George Doring
said that after the commission reviewed Mr. McDermott's report last month, he sat down with the consultant, Mayor Murphy and zoning attorney
Tom Byrne
"to determine the best way to have this project move forward and yet protect the town."

The result was a regulation titled Major Planned Development District Number 1 that is specific to the Dunham Farm proposal and adopted unanimously by zoners. Every application for a major planned development district will be a regulation change, Mayor Murphy, a former zoner, explained.

Any major deviation in the final site plan from what was approved last week would require a new zone change application, Mr. Doring said.

Mr. McDermott said the regulation provides the basis for the general development plan, is specific to Dunham Farm and "is not spot zoning."

"That's the nature of special development districts," Mr. McDermott said, explaining that the regulation covers a very large area and ties the developer to "very, very specific conditions. This is a regulation you are adopting just for this site."

Under the regulation adopted major planned development districts must be a minimum of a mile apart and can only apply to sites larger than 150 acres in the area bounded by Route 37 on the north, Route 7 on the east, the Sherman and New Fairfield town lines on the west and on the south by the highway to Greenpond and by Jerusalem Hill Road.

The approved regulation allows the town to request administrative support paid for by the developer.

"I don't want to overwhelm our staff," Mayor Murphy said.

The regulation also calls for bonding in phases, spells out water and sewage disposal requirements and requires the reconstruction of Rocky River Road. It also requires 60 percent of the site remain open space and requires a contribution of $10,000 a unit for the first 10 percent of the units for affordable housing.

Mr. Frey has also promised a $10 million donation to establish a land trust to preserve open space and farmland in town.

"[Mr. Frey] is doing the town a big favor, I believe, in the development of Rocky River Road," said zoner Brooks
Temple
.

Mr. Temple and Mayor Murphy said the new road, now a trail, would improve emergency vehicle access to the residents living on the mountain and would siphon off some of the existing Candlewood Mountain Road traffic from neighborhoods south of Dunham Farm.

Zoner Steve Paduano said he was concerned about the impact of the development on residents of Candlewood Mountain Road. He urged the commission to do something to encourage construction vehicles and people from the development to use Rocky River Road and avoid using Candlewood Mountain Road as an access road.